Key Largo: Lizards, Flowers And Tropical Sunsets

After my morning hikes in Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park I would usually   spend some time exploring the beautiful sub-tropical flowers gardens of the Bar Harbor Lodge and Coconut Bay Resort where I was staying. And enjoy the homemade scones and coffee the owners of the lodge provide their guest. 

These well maintained gardens have a wide variety of sub-tropical flowers.

I spent a few hours admiring, and photographing some of them. There are so many  exotic and beautiful flowers   like these  moth orchids, native to Asia.  I used my Picture This iPhone  app to identify them so I hope they are correct. 

These white moth orchids bloomed nearby. 

Across a path was these delicate orchid trees flowers. 

These pretty blue dendrobium orchids also grew nearby.

The tropical flowers could be found under coconut  and other species of palm threes that grew throughout the properties. And around this large gumbo-limbo tree near the entrance to the resort.

Here  I found a few different species,

and colors of  Egyptian starclusters,  

Crown of thorn flowers could be found throughout the resort. 

There were also  few  tropical bird of paradise flowers and

false bird of paradise flowers  also growing throughout the resort.

And many other exotic tropical flowers and plants such as the shell ginger flowers,

these castor beans and 

red powder puff flowers. 

In addition to the many attractive flowers there were exotic ferns and large leafed plants such as these giant taro or elephant ear leaves, 

giant sword or Boston ferns and 

ti plant or club asparagus.

There were too many to show all of them here and many that I didn’t photograph.  Needless to saw, spending time in this wonderful gardens is a relaxing way to spend some time on a sunny and warm Florida afternoon. 

And you won’t be alone, bees butterflies and birds visit the gardens. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to photograph them. But there are also  lizards scurrying in the gardens of  the resort and  I was able to photograph a few of them. `

They range in size from the small brown anole lizard to large iguana lizards. 

Resembling their extinct relatives the dinosaurs, they are interesting critters to just spend some time observing. 

This was the largest one I saw during my stay. 

The resort also has a beach and dock on the Florida bay which provides fantastic views of the setting sub-tropical sun. 

I watched a few,

and a beautiful moon too. And hope to share some in another blog post. Here is a link to some more photographs from my stay at the Bar Harbor Lodge.  Florida Key Largo Bar Harbor Lodge February 2021. 

Flowers are the music of the earth  Marty Rubin

fskokoski@gmail.com

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